Freaking out about finding a job? LinkedIn launches app for students to help

A new social media app for college students rolled out last week, but keep your Snapchat selfies and party photos away from this one, and bring on the blazers.

LinkedIn’s new mobile app, LinkedIn Students, launched April 18 on iOS and Android. Like LinkedIn, it helps users build a career-oriented network and explore the job market, but is customized for their unique needs as students.

“Students are already on LinkedIn, but we think we can do more for them,” says Ada Yu, project manager for LinkedIn Students. “We think we can really design and build an experience that really helps them.”

Young people are no strangers to LinkedIn. Approximately 40 million of the website’s 414 million users are either college students or recent graduates, Wu says. But after talking to students about their experiences on the site, the company found their interface wasn’t entirely student-friendly.

For example, Wu says asking college students to list their work experience and “industry” is not always applicable and can be confusing.

LinkedIn Students first asks users only to list their school, major and graduating year. From there, the app gives daily recommendations — the company call them “ideas” — of different types of jobs that students might be interested in, as well as the career paths of alumni from their school. Also included in the daily “ideas” are articles related to students’ majors, companies they may be interested in and specific jobs in their field that are currently hiring.

Photo courtesy of LinkedIn

“Imagine you are a marketing student about to graduate from San Jose State (University),” Yu says. “One of the first things we’re going to show you is, ‘Have you considered being a marketing specialist?’ And the reason why we recommend it is because 10 other marketing alumni from your school, they’re currently doing this.”

Users can then click on the job category to learn more details, such as which companies are currently looking to fill that role, the position’s median salary and its prospective growth in the job market, which the company calculates by measuring the change in number of LinkedIn users of that same profession on yearly basis. If students “save” the job, it is then added to a separate menu where it can be accessed later.

App users also receive a daily list of alumni from their university who studied the same major, giving them the opportunity to connect on LinkedIn or simply “save” their profile and receive their LinkedIn updates.

“We believe that students, when they start, may not have a large network. So, with the app, we’re actually trying to get them to build that network,” Yu says.

In a 2014 report by Jobvite, an online recruiting platform, 94% of 1,855 recruiters and human resources professionals from a variety of industries reported in a survey that they used LinkedIn to search for job candidates. In a job market so dependent on the web, University of California-Los Angeles career center director Wesley Thorne says it’s becoming increasingly important for students entering the workforce to have access to apps like LinkedIn Students.

“The Internet has evolved the way students conduct a job search,” Thorne says. “Ten years ago the focus was on finding and combing through opportunities, but the barrier was sifting through a myriad of positions that were not entry-level or appropriate for students. Now we are embracing technologies connect students with the right types of positions based on interest, skills and experience.”

Celeste Hay, a junior studying fashion design and French at Central Michigan University and an intern at the school’s career center, agrees that having the ability to easily connect with alumni is instrumental in developing a professional network.

“I think with the app, it’d be helpful just to have that sort of summarized version of here’s a list of everyone else who did fashion design, and here’s how they got to where they are,” Hay says. “I could make sure that I’m finding the right connections, rather than just reaching out blindly to people.”

Information is transferrable between LinkedIn Students and LinkedIn, so if you’re already signed up for the latter, the app auto-fills the details in your new account.

“There’s so much more potential in this app,” Yu says. “We’re just getting started, and I’m personally very excited to see where this app can go.”

Abbey Schubert is a Northwestern University student and a USA TODAY College correspondent.